Carlos Mendoza, the president of the Association for [Real] Madrid’s Values, gives an interview to AS in which he describes the financial situation of Real Madrid,
which is by most estimates the world’s most expensive soccer team, as being grim, to say the least.

According to Mendoza, the club is 541 million euros ($734.7 million) in debt, which is
more than twice the total debt load that current Real President Florentino Perez inherited from Lorenzo Sanz, his predecessor. On top of that, Mendoza points out that
Perez aims to rebuild Real’s home stadium, the Santiago Bernabeu, at a further cost of $543.2 million. Moreover, Mendoza’s projection does not include the club’s astonishing summer
outlay of $187.4 million on player acquisitions this summer.

And while the sales of Mesut Ozil to Arsenal, Gonzalo Higuain to Napoli and Kaka
to AC Milan were both positive and necessary, Mendoza says they amount to a mere drop in the ocean given the club’s ever-increasing costs. “Since [Vicente] Del
Bosque left, Florentino has spent 800 million euros ($1.1 billion) on players who have won a League and a Cup. The model is clearly inefficient."